Chapter 1

Marie was a filipina who had worked in Dubai for several years as a nanny and housemaid for a rich local family. Her main task was to look after the older girl who was 15 when she started working there. Now this daughter, Noora, was 18 and she had applied to study in a college in UK. Her parents were liberal, so they agreed that Noora could study there on two conditions. The first condition was that she had to study in a smaller city and not in London because there were too many temptations there, and also too many Arab boys. The second condition was that she had to take Marie with her to cook and look after her. Of course Noora agreed immediately to the conditions and started her search for a college in UK. Finally, she discovered that there was a course she liked in Nottingham, in the middle of England. Noora and her father travelled to Nottingham to register her for her course and to find an apartment for her and Marie to live in. They found a nice two-bedroom apartment in front of the canal and near the university. The only thing now was to apply for a visa for Marie and wait for the course to start, so Noora and her father returned to Dubai.

Marie had never travelled outside Philippines apart from to and from Dubai when she returned home on her annual holiday. She was married and had a family back home, who were being cared for by her husband. Unlike many other filipinos, Marie’s husband was a good family man who cared for his wife and children. He had never strayed or had other women, and Marie had also been completely faithful to him. However, she had once read a book called The Story of O after which she often had dark thoughts and fantasies that she had never discussed with her husband because she knew that he would be horrified to hear her innermost secret fantasies. Marie had never imagined that she could experience any of her fantasies, and they had remained safely hidden away in her mind – until she went to work in Dubai.

Dubai was a whole new world for Marie. Of course, Manila in the Philippines was a modern city of towers and traffic, but Dubai was light years ahead in its buildings, its shopping malls, its pace, its wealth, and its vice. The main vice in Dubai was prostitution, which was tolerated as it attracted a lot of customers from nearby Arab countries, especially from Saudi Arabia where any hint of prostitution was punished by a sentence of caning and prison, and for the Saudi citizens with shame on their families, which would be a major social blow to the man and to his family. So, Saudi men took their wives shopping in Dubai, while they indulged in a little ‘extracurricular’ activity in the bars and with the ladies of the night. Face was saved, and all were happy. Marie first learned about the very active sex scene in Dubai when she was given a day off to go to church. There she met other filipinas who invited her to go to a bar in the afternoon. Marie had no friends in this new city, so she accepted, even though she did not really drink alcohol much.